Archives

Richard Haass’s new book, Foreign Policy Begins at Home, should delight realists. His strong case that we should put our own house in order is neither isolationist nor declinist. On the contrary, he persuasively shows that United States continues to be the indispensable nation: as he puts it, if the United States will not provide leadership for the world order, no other nation stands ready to take over. Nor is there a contradiction between focusing on shoring up the nation at home and its international role. To maintain its status in the world, the United States must have a strong economy, polity and society.

In a speech last week at the National Defense University, President Obama made clear that he is moving to the left. This will mean more transparency and Congressional oversight of his high flying drone program, new ways to close Gitmo, and cutting the list of terrorist groups that may be hit. Last week, he promoted a shield for journalists who publish state secrets—a shield against the kind of government inquiry that his attorney general just carried out in collecting the phone records of the Associated Press. And Obama has already vastly reduced the number of drone hits.

When Boston bombing conspirator Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured, the event brought up–again–questions about the proper legal procedures for perpetrators of terrorism, particularly when those terrorists who are American citizens. Several conservative senators rushed to suggest that Tsarnaev be designated an “enemy combatant,” which would allow for the suspension of his habeas corpus rights and the relaxation of what are otherwise Constitutional rights to due process and, by extension, certain rules of evidence and so forth. Meanwhile, it has long been the position of many on the left that the strongest statement of American values should be to try terrorists as ordinary criminals, with all the Constitution rights to which ordinary criminals are entitled.

The president is either moping or muttering defensively about the abuses by the IRS and the tragedy of Benghazi. And to mollify the media about the alleged overreach of capturing the AP’s phone records, he has offered to promote a legal shield for the media. As I see it, if he wakes up tomorrow and is willing to speak up, there are a few things he could fairly state.

Telling the American people that the government is not the devil that the GOP makes it out to be — that it is full of good people who bring you Social Security, Medicare, air-traffic controllers, and park rangers — is getting us no more than some flexibility in allocating an unduly tight budget. It is time to go populist.